big spender

this is pretty fascinating. and unnervingly pleasing to look at. in a world where the news tells us every day about monetary figures far too abstract to comprehend, an artist has attempted to put it all in some sort of graspable context. the result evokes some odd feelings. it's simple, not unlike a mondrian painting, but oddly subdued by a choice of half-hearted pastel colours.

maybe that's a choice to try and take away the horror of some of the statistics you'll find by taking a closer look. it's a brilliant way of comparison. for example: if we didn't have the beijing olympics, computer games, gift cards or yoga... we could feed every child in the world and save the amazon rainforests. that's worth a thought or two.

and the money spent on the Big Tobacco settlement could have paid off all african debt to the western world.

and the annual amount OPEC spend on climate change is less than what americans spend on viagra.

the big purple bit is pretty scary; how much money has been spent on blowing up iraq. what's even scarier (you'll see if you go and have a look) is a big yellow box at the bottom that was far too big to put on this blog.

the big yellow box is how much the banks are going to cost the economy by the time this financial crisis is over.

genocide: not as bad as bankers.